I agreed to publish this here because it is such a different perspective then the one I have or CES has. We tend to blame builders for not just serving up top notch energy efficient residences. Then there is the issue of retrofitting. As always this is no endorsement of Ryan or his Real Estate firm. Believe me I have no intention of buying a home in Alaska.

More Buyers Are Looking for Energy Effcient Homes in the US… But is it

Enough?

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Now, a “green home” really isn’t all that green when observed on its own, but the fact

remains that most of new construction and existing homes are going to be detached

single-family residences. This means that we need to do the best we can with the hand we

have been dealt, and that would suggest that incremental improvements across the board

may be the best option in terms of reducing waste. Recent trends in US real estatehave

affected what buyers are looking for in some positive ways, but there are still far too few

green homes available for buyers who want this option.!That makes it a frustrating search

for potential green home buyers, and discourages them from truly setting their sites on a

home that works for them. Additionally, because they aren’t making their voices heard,

many builders are not working to make homes that meet green specications (beyond the

bare minimum). They don’t realize the level of demand that would be there, if buyers felt

they would have the option.

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More Buyers Should Push for Green Homes

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There’s really one way to remedy the issue:buyers who want green homes should push

for them across as many channels as they can. If more buyers continue to ask for green

homes, more builders will produce these homes out of necessity. But buyers need to be

the catalysts in both demand and advocacy aimed toward other potential green buyers.

More of them want green homes, but they back down when they see these homes aren’t

available. Builders and sellers both need to know the value of creating these kinds of

homes or making changes to existing homes, so buyers will be more likely to purchase

those homes instead of other options. This might mean more negotiations with sellers and builders, and it will likely come at an increased cost — costs that will likely be recouped over time, but another upfront cost nonetheless.

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What are Buyers Looking For?

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When the average buyer!wants a green home, they don’t necessarily require one that’s

completely off grid. Some buyers will seek these out, but most will be looking for energy

efifciency, sustainable materials, and a smaller carbon footprint than what would be seen

with a standard house. In many cases, that’s enough to entice buyers to make a purchase,

and to keep them happy with the home they have selected. It also depends on the area of the country and the local market, because some buyers want and need different options due to weather or other factors.

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More Demand Will Require an Increase in Supply

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The more buyers start asking for green homes, the more likely it is that builders will create them. Sellers will also start making changes to the homes they are putting on the market, in order to entice buyers to come see their home instead of a different one. That’s an important consideration, too, sincesellers may need to retrofit their homes in some ways and add options that they would not have chosen to put in if they were remaining in the house. Some green living changes can be expensive, but these changes don’t always have to be costly. There are lower priced options, as well.

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Trends are Moving in the Right Direction, at Least

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Even though there are still far too few green homes, and even though buyers aren’t making their voices heard as loudly as they could, the trend of green living is still going in the right direction. More buyers see the value of it, and more builders and sellers are starting to make changes in that direction. There is still a long way to go before energy efficiency and reducing waste becomes the standard for new homes and improved existing homes, but a larger pool of buyers demanding these features can help move the needle bit by bit.

To Not talk about how disastrous Trump’s Presidency will be for the environment and the energy industry I decided to return to my roots in the residential market. Todays article is a bit old but its message is timeless. We have been concentrating on single devices like furnaces, refrigerators, windows seen as a whole instead of a holistic approach to a house.

We’re Doing Residential Energy Efficiency All Wrong

Utilities are now spending nearly $7 billion a year on energy-efficiency programs. It seems we have little to show for it aside from expensive consultants who will model any results you would like.

These programs tend to focus their marketing on the energy savings or money savings from the projects. Consumers don’t care. If they did, we would see geometric growth instead of a resounding “meh.”

Others focus on better financing products, slicker sales pitches, faster energy audits, higher rebates or any of a myriad of other things.

In the residential sector, none of these are the problem. The lack of sales is the problem.

Projects are not being sold and implemented in substantial numbers. We need to slow it down, build relationships with consumers and educate them, learn and think systemically about the problems they have, and arrive at solutions that fit homeowner budgets.

I am really shocked by this article. The idea that residential energy consumption could change so dramatically in only 16 years is so amazing. Its like when we shifted to coal or later when we shifted to natural gas and then electricity. Only nobody is really talking about it.

For decades, space heating and cooling (space conditioning) accounted for more than half of all residential energy consumption. Estimates from the most recent Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), collected in 2010 and 2011 and released in 2011 and 2012, show that 48% of energy consumption in U.S. homes in 2009 was for heating and cooling, down from 58% in 1993. Factors underpinning this trend are increased adoption of more efficient equipment, better insulation, more efficient windows, and population shifts to warmer climates. The shift in how energy is consumed in homes has occurred even as per-household energy consumption has steadily declined.

While energy used for space conditioning has declined, energy consumption for appliances and electronics continues to rise. Although some appliances that are subject to federal efficiency standards, such as refrigerators and clothes washers, have become more efficient, the increased number of devices that consume energy in homes has offset these efficiency gains. Non-weather related energy use for appliances, electronics, water heating, and lighting now accounts for 52% of total consumption, up from 42% in 1993. The majority of devices in the fastest growing category of residential end-uses are powered by electricity, increasing the total amount of primary energy needed to meet residential electricity demand. As described in yesterday’s Today in Energy, increased electricity use has a disproportionate effect on the amount of total primary energy required to support site-level energy use.

Other notable trends in household energy consumption include:

The average U.S. household consumed 11,320 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity in 2009, of which the largest portion (7,526 kWh) was for appliances, electronics, lighting, and miscellaneous uses.

On average, residents living in homes constructed in the 1980s consumed 77 million Btu of total energy at home. By comparison, those living in newer homes, built from 2000 to 2009, consumed 92 million Btu per household, which is 19% more.

Space heating accounted for 63% of natural gas consumed in U.S. homes in 2009; the remaining 37% was for water heating, cooking, and miscellaneous uses.

I mean really if they are going to drop their insistence on solar panel installations as part of a retrofit then why keep the name? Are they now a software company or are they now a software and then install whatever company? Good questions with no answers. It would be like Tide if it were to stop making soap and started making dishwashers. Would they keep the name and why?

But solar is very different from efficiency. For the most part, solar is very standardized and installations are uniform from home to home. Efficiency retrofits encompass an extraordinarily broad category of activities and skills. Incentives are also quite different for efficiency, making it more complicated from a financial perspective. That’s why only a handful of U.S. solar contractors have offered efficiency as an in-house service.

SolarCity decided that doing the retrofit work itself was not the best way to scale. Instead, it has turned from manpower to the power of big data.

The secret sauce is a “simulation engine” that shows homeowners exactly how much they’re spending on energy everywhere in their house. The initial database was created using information from 16,000 home energy audits performed over the last five years. It relies on an algorithm developed at the Department of Energy that crunches 100 million calculations per home for each individual energy efficiency audit (which is still performed by SolarCity when installing solar).

“The simulation software looks at every component in a home in relation to one another,” said SolarCity COO Peter Rive. “Every ten minutes, it thinks about what one thing is doing and about its effect on the rest of the systems within the home.”

Yes I know there are many things that are wrong about Las Vegas. People shouldn’t even be there in the first place. The rape of the river that no longer reaches the sea. The rape of the pristine desert and the death of many Native Americans. I lived there for a year and there is also the cheesy nature of the culture. But when they do something right, you got to give them credit.

Nevada Energy Star Partners Demonstrate Peak Performance (Web Only)

Las Vegas may appear balmy and inviting with its sparkling pools and swaying palm trees, but those who live in Neon City know the truth: It’s too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer.

Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of homes that were built during an amazing 50 years of rapid growth in the Southwest do not incorporate modern advances in energy performance to accommodate the wild swings of desert climate. As temperatures climb to 110°F in the summer, many homes leak large amounts of cooled air through gaps in ducts, roofs, windows, and doors. And when the frigid north wind drops the temperature below freezing in the winter, heated air escapes, leaving living rooms and bedrooms uncomfortably cold and drafty. While Las Vegans know their climate, they may not realize that they are paying to heat and cool the great outdoors.

The dramatic temperature shifts in the high-desert climate make Las Vegas an ideal place for homeowners who are looking to make their homes more comfortable and to save substantially on their energy bills. Funded in part by DOE’s Building America program, the Building America Retrofit Alliance is working with the Nevada ENERGY STAR Partners–Green Alliance (NESP–Green Alliance), and with Better Building Performance, a Las Vegas company, to upgrade two typical homes top to bottom. Their goal has been to show homeowners and remodelers how easy and effective energy performance upgrades can be.

This site offers a lot of features. Most of the cover page is one of those fancy slick every changing happy pictures type power point presentations so I will spare you that, but they have a lot of really useful information so:

Five Models of Energy Efficiency: A Guide to Beautiful, Energy-Efficient Homes

Five US builders are being honored for their exceptional achievements in high performance building at the second annual BASF Builders Challenge Awards.

Led by the U.S Department of Energy (DOE), the Builders Challenge is working with homebuilders across America to build a new generation of high-performance homes, working toward the ultimate goal of providing cost-effective, net-zero energy homes by 2030 for all Americans.

To qualify for the Builders Challenge, homes must meet at least a 70 on the EnergySmart Home Scale (E-Scale) — which means they must use at least 30 percent less energy than a typical new home built to code.

2010 BUILDERS CHALLENGE AWARDEES

Colorado Builder’s Net-Zero-Energy House Costs Just 7% to 8% More

Ecofutures Building Inc. developed four certified Builders Challenge homes (two with minus-three HERS ratings). These net-zero-energy measures represented only 7% to 8% of the total building cost.

Artistic Homes of Albuquerque offers a net-zero-energy upgrade option on all their homes. They’ve completed and sold 11 true net-zero-energy homes ranging from 1,305 to 2,905 square feet and costing between $160,000 and $300,000.

Tim O’Brien, a fanatic about eliminating air infiltration, actually got $400 back from the utility the first month after construction was finished. He guarantees a zero energy cost for the first 5 years on his home.

The UAF campus uses electricity. Some of the electricity is used to power fluorescent light bulbs which are much more efficient than incandescent bulbs but because they exist as a load in the power grid, use energy. How much energy is being used by these lights, is it more than is necessary, and how bright to classrooms and computer labs need to be? In 2010, UAF created its Office of Sustainability to utilize the $20 per student fee towards sustainable projects. The goal is to supply the necessary funds to make sustainable projects happen but the projects must be cost effective with realistic financial return periods. Although bright rooms are convenient, the UAF sustainability club should lobby the Chancellor and Facilities Services to implement a program that systematically removes bulbs from over-lit rooms because it will reduce the energy use of the UAF campus, make indoor conditions more comfortable, and save money.

The simplest way to reduce the energy use for lighting is to remove unnecessary bulbs. Before someone begins pulling random lights from their fixtures at will, some simple calculations can be done to get “back of the envelope” numbers for a cost-benefit analysis. The following calculations will use some simple energy units, the kilo-Watt (kW) and the kilo-Watt-hour (kWh). A kW is a measurement of Power and is defined as 1,000 joules per second, how quickly work is being done. A kWh is a measurement of energy, a fairly large amount of energy at that, being the amount of work by a one kW source for one hour. Electricity is sold in kWh, because it doesn’t matter how fast someone or something is using the electricity but how much of it they are using. Light intensity can be measured in lumens or foot-candles. A lumen is a measure of the power of light perceived by the human eye and the foot-candle can be considered as the amount of light falling on a surface, being defined as one lumen per square foot.

The first thing to be determined is whether or not rooms are over lit. If they are, then energy is being wasted. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), recommends that in an office setting, the light intensity be between 20 and 50 foot-candles (OSHA). As I write this essay, I am sitting in the Students of Engineering Computer Lab (SOECAL) in Duckering. The room is quite bright and approximately 20 ft by 40 ft and holds 15 light fixtures, each containing three fluorescent bulbs. The bulbs are GE Ecolux Starcoat bulbs consuming 32 Watts and producing 2800 lumens a piece (light bulb). To determine if this particular room is over lit, the following calculation is made:

It appears that the SOECAL lab is over lit by three times the amount of recommended light for a work office, perhaps other similar classrooms and computer labs are as well. Since we can assume the SOECAL lab and many other rooms are over lit, it can also be determined how much energy is being wasted and how much it is costing. The following calculations are performed considering a single bulb for a single hour.

That is right the Sun creates all the energy on the Earth. Well, the Sun or its cousins because the heavy metals that we use for our version of “nuclear power” were created in Suns of the past that blew up. The oil, natural gas and the coal we burn are nothing but dead congealed plants and animals nurtured by the sun. Really think about it what is “natural gas”. The stink of the dead from the past. So why do we do that? We can get all the energy we need directly from the Sun? The point is that if the capitalist system can sell you bottled water then it surely can sell you petroleum products.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It has a diameter of about 1,392,000 kilometers (865,000 mi), about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (about 2 × 1030 kilograms, 330,000 times that of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.[10] About three quarters of the Sun’s mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. Less than 2% consists of heavier elements, including iron, oxygen, carbon, neon, and others.[11]

The Sun’s color is white, although from the surface of the Earth it may appear yellow because of atmospheric scattering.[12] Its stellar classification, based on spectral class, is G2V, and is informally designated a yellow star, because the majority of its radiation is in the yellow-green portion of the visible spectrum.[13] In this spectral class label, G2 indicates its surface temperature of approximately 5,778 K (5,505 °C; 9,941 °F), and V (Roman five) indicates that the Sun, like most stars, is a main sequence star, and thus generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses 430–600 million tons of hydrogen each second. Once regarded by astronomers as a small and relatively insignificant star, the Sun is now presumed to be brighter than about 85% of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy, most of which are red dwarfs.[14][15] The absolute magnitude of the Sun is +4.83; however, as the star closest to Earth, the Sun is the brightest object in the sky with an apparent magnitude of ?26.74.[16][17] The Sun’s hot corona continuously expands in space creating the solar wind, a hypersonic stream of charged particles that extends to the heliopause at roughly 100 astronomical units. The bubble in the interstellar medium formed by the solar wind, the heliosphere, is the largest continuous structure in the Solar System.[18][19]

I usually post this on CES’ Bulletin Board for them but it dawned on me when this came in this morning, that many people are already working with the the goodness of the Earth in mind. That includes all of the Earth advocates in groups like Clean Techies and the Nature Conservancy.

I would like to highlight a few promising events that are coming up. CleanTechies is proud to be official media partner for all these events and offers you the chance to win free tickets. Read on to find more details.

If you are hiring right now, it would be great if you wanted to share your openings with the CleanTechies community. We have one of the most active job boards in the industry, and you can post your jobs for FREE by using discount code “free09”. Post your jobs at: http://www.facebook.com/l/846e8;cleantechjobs.cleantechies.com